Ephesians --Background

Our family was able to take a trip a few years ago to Greece, Rome and Ephesus in the footsteps of Paul. I hope to be able to look back over the video of that trip to gain more insight. But here is what I remember.

Ephesus is in modern day Turkey. And on the day we went there it was extremely hot! 104 degrees if I remember correctly. I wasn't feeling well on that day as it was toward the end of our trip and we had just gotten off the cruise so I didn't have my "land-legs" back. So I was in the words of Madame Blueberry, "Feeling woozy."

Ephesus was a commercial, port city. They were VERY wealthy and pagan. There were many prostitutes and they advertised their brothels in the concrete sidewalks. There was a large library in Ephesus. And they were known for their worship of Diana. Statues of her show her as a many-breasted goddess. And in reading Acts 19, one can see the encounters that Paul had with the Ephesians. In fact, the men of Ephesus got mad at Paul for preaching against their idol and ruining their business. They got together and shouted for 2 hours "Great is Diana of the Ephesians."

I think one thing that I find amazing in the day in which I live is that they would persist in that activity for 2 hours. We live in such a time that no one does anything for any lengthy amount of time and we get our information in 30-second sound bites.

There were 2 large gathering areas in Ephesus--one was an audion, the other was a great amphitheater. We were told that where Paul most likely met with the Ephesians was at the smaller audion.